Company

"Mock me with praise, let me be used
Vary my days, but alone is alone, not alive."

Commitments are tough but life alone is impossible. That is the core of George Furth's episodic book and Stephen Sondheim's incisive score of the Company revival at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

With orchestrations by Mary-Mitchell Campbell, the masterwork is the music. Sondheim's songs are fire and ice, alive and illuminating, stopping the action to comment on the situations and the characters. They center on affirmed bachelor, Bobby. His friends, five married couples, throw him a surprise 35th birthday party. More than celebrating his birthday, the women are itching to get him married. "There's no one in his life," they reveal in "Poor Baby." "We're the only tenderness he's ever known." And they like it that way.

Their husbands, meanwhile, envy his freedom. "Boy! To be in your shoes what I wouldn't give!" — "Have I A Got A Girl for You."

When Bobby asks if being married is worth it, they reply, "Why look for answers where there are none. You're always wondering what might have been" ("Sorry/Grateful").

Bobby (Raul Esparza) is privy to the dissatisfied relationships around him but he is never sharply defined as a character. Esparza's subtle body language illustrates his indecisive nature. Although curious about an emotional relationship, he remains ambivalent and aloof, staying at arm's length from pledging too much into his own love affairs. His songs illuminate his caution. In the moody "Barcelona," Bobby coaxes stewardess April to stay with him longer even though she has to leave for a flight to Spain, but when she unexpectedly agrees, Bobby is dismayed. He fantasizes in "Someone is Waiting" about the perfect girl, a mixture of the wives around him, recognizing that no such ideal exists. Most revealing of Bobby, however, is "Marry Me a Little": "Keep a tender distance/ So we'll both be free." Remaining detached, he never lets loose until the end, when he sits at the piano and delivers a deeply felt "Being Alive." Yet, is this a fleeting or lasting affirmation?

George Furth lightly sketched in the various couples' personalities: Dieter Sarah (Kristin Huffman), Harry (Keith Buterbaugh) the drinker, both avoiding their weaknesses and avidly competitive with each other; Jenny (Leenya Rideout), David (Fred Rose), and pot; Susan (Amy Justman) and Peter (Matt Castle), getting a divorce but living together; Paul (Robert Cunningham) and Amy (Heather Laws). Amy suffers a panic attack just before their wedding, rendering an over-hysterical, "(I'm Not) Getting Married Today." Barbara Walsh takes on the character of Joanne, a role written for Elaine Stritch, and as she caustically snipes at poor Larry (Bruce Sabath), she advises Bobby:

"It's the little things you do together...,
That make perfect relationships." Slyly followed by -- "Uh-huh. M-hm."

Later Joanne, in her cups, sings a sardonic anthem to "The Ladies Who Lunch."

Director/choreographer John Doyle's decision to have actors double as musicians, while effective in Sweeney Todd, feels gimmicky in Company. Furth's vignettes are made up of overlapping dialogue, songs, and advice. The large cast mills around the stage, picking up and playing instruments, clinking glasses. David Gallo designed a 1970's Manhattan set that simultaneously discloses the contemporary glossy alienation in this city of strangers. Ann Hould-Ward dresses the characters in New York black. Lighting by Thomas C. Hase sets off distinct spaces and adds to the jagged vibes of the alienated characters illustrated in the frenetic "Another Hundred People."

Company is an intriguing musical, though not emotionally stirring. The end of the play is really the beginning of Bobby's life. Will he take a chance with someone, "To ruin your sleep/To make you aware/Of being alive"? Will he accept that life is being both happy and unhappy, or is his truth in "Sorry/Grateful"'s: "You'll always be what you always were"?

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
February 23, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org